


Fleet and Flotilla II

by WetuAlenko (wyrdo)



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Garrus is impressed across the board, POV Garrus Vakarian, Tali is brave, Tali is impressive, Things Tali Isn't
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-13 18:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20586698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrdo/pseuds/WetuAlenko
Summary: A Quarian, Two humans, and a Turian walk into a dark alley.  Nobody else walks out."Are you ok?  Did they hurt you? Your suit wasn't pierced was it?" Shepard asked"I can take care of myself!" the Quarian asserted. "Who are you?"





	1. The most Turian of Aliens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kate_Shepard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/gifts).

> I chanced upon a conversation on one of Kate_Shepard's stories that echoed a lot of what i was seeing elsewhere. There seems to be a general lack of Tali-love and serious doubt in the ME3 Garrus/Tali side romance. I, like Joker always liked and respected Tali and would totally 'mance her with a male Shepard if i ever bothered to push one past level 32 in ME1. 
> 
> I'm not sure if it's that she's nice? A woman can be nice without being a doormat. That there is one thing that will push her over the edge into suicide and that is losing the only thing her father ever promised her? Or the fact that her friendship with Garrus does grow even while FemShep is romancing him. I dunno, but somebody needed to stand up for Tali. 
> 
> And plus, i do seem to have a thing for the least considered/most doubted romances (see my DA stories for two of them)

“That's probably her” the male Alliance officer whispered on the com, _what was his name? Alenna?_

Garrus leaned forward, trying to see the Quarian in the grop through the red tinted light of the alley.

A Turian thug, no, assassin approached her, his stride saying he owned the alley.

“Did you bring it?” he asked, stepping into her space. She didn't back up like most Quarians would.

“Where's the Shadow Broker?” she countered. “Where's Fist?”

The assassin reached up and touched her cowl, right beside her mask, then his talon moved down the cowl and along her shoulder toward the omni-tool insertion point on her left wrist. “Where's the evidence?” he purred.

“No way.” she said, striking his hand away from her with her right hand and stepping back half a step. “The deal's off.”

The lieutenant made a sound through the com that his translator indicated was a whistle “She's got moxie.”. His voice sounded as much like Turian sub vocals as humans ever would.

The commander flashed a hand down, taking position behind a decorative pillar as two Salarians joined the assassin. The male human stopped whispering.

Garrus knelt, drew, and took aim at the Turian. He couldn't take his eyes off the Quarian though. She wasn't quite the rabbit he'd expected. She stood tall as the Turian backed a way from her. Her head tilted slowly toward the nearest exit to find it blocked by the Salarians.

In a split second, an explosion hit knocking the Salarians off their feet and allowing her to dive toward Garrus and move behind a trash bin.

Garrus released a shot then overloaded the Turian's shield while the humans focused on stopping the Salarians but fighting was second nature, and four of them outnumbered their opponents. This left his mind with the cycles to review and analyze what he had seen.

The Quarian was unarmed he realized! He'd seen no weapon on her back or hip and yet instead of cowering behind the dumpster, she was peeking out, her Omni tool winking periodically. She was unarmed and she was fighting. She hadn't run like most civilians. She wasn't cowering behind cover like most civilians, she was fighting. _Did Quarians have a military?_ he wondered. _Was she in it?_

It wasn't much longer before Saren's thugs were all on the ground and Shepard raced toward her. The Quarian exited cover showing both her hands. He was impressed with her bravery, she'd had no way of knowing that they were there, or that he and Shepard had been on her side, and not Saren's. He watched as her fist's clenched.

“Fist set me up!” she asserted, “I knew I couldn't trust him!”

Garrus' feelers opened in shock. She suspected she couldn't trust Fist and yet she walked into a dark alley anyway? Was she brave? Stupid? Trusting? Some combination of all three?

While the commander spoke to her, he turned the bodies over and looked for ID.

None of them had ID chips on them, but the Salarians he knew. Brothers, criminals Garrus had dealings with before. The Turian, he didn't know. His face markings branded him as being from one of the lost colonies, Perysa. A colony that had destroyed itself rather than fall to the Unified Turian Hierarchy.

Garrus chuckled darkly. “What?” the commander asked tersely, both woman looking at him.

“Oh, sorry, Commander. I didn't mean to interrupt. It's just funny.”

“Care to share it with the class?” she said, one of the furry parts of her face moving upward independent of the other.

Garrus looked around. “Class?”

“A human expression,” the Lieutenant explained. _Damn it, what was his name? Alendo? _“She wants you to explain.”

“Oh, right.” Garrus bent his knees in a shrug. “This guy isn't Perysan. He couldn't be. That colony died out famously during the Unification war.”

“And?” Shepard said darkly, the other furry bit...eyebrow, right joining it's mate.

“Sorry, it, uh, means he is either a bareface outcast or somebody who is hiding his colony of origin and therefore no better than barefaced.”

“How is that funny?” the commander asked.

Garrus scratched under his fringe and thought, really thought about the question. “I guess it's a cross between impersonating the most famous of the fallen colonies and choosing one that would rather die than fall. One that everybody knows is gone.”

“I suspect you had to be there.” The male human said quietly.

Shepard and the Quarian stared at Garrus for another beat and then the commander shrugged in the human way. With her shoulders. Garrus cringed and clenched his teeth. Shoulders shouldn't move in that way.

After a moment the Quarian piped in. “Bareface is an insult among Turians.” she said. Garrus' head spun toward her, his mandible flaring on it's own. “and wearing the markings of a fallen colony is a crime in many colonies.” she said thoughtfully, ticking the items off on her fingers. “It is stupid bordering on insane to have painted his face with such an infamous one.”

Those caterpillars, no, eyebrows, on Shepard's face went up higher as she looked between Garrus and the Quarian.

Garrus just stared at the tiny Quarian. For a closed society like the Quarians, she knew a lot about Turians and that had been quite a logical leap from three apparently disseparate facts. He'd have to ask her about it later.

The other human, _Alenko! That was it! _Changed his comm setting so he was just talking to Garrus. “Impressive isn't she?” he asked. “Did you hear her say she could take care of herself? I wonder whether she even needed our help.”

Garrus had missed that part of the conversation so he shook his head

Alenko chuckled, his voice flanging ever so slightly, sounding a bit like a young Turian girl. “She's cocky, but skilled.” he commented “If she could eat the food, I'd put her name forward for N7 training.”

While Garrus summoned C-Sec, the others headed toward the Embassy. He watched her appraisingly as she walked off with Shepard and Alenko. She had a small waist for a Quarian and he appreciated it while he rewrote everything he thought about the race. They weren't all weak, they weren't even whiners. She had moxie as Alenko had said, and Shepard was flat out impressive.

He rejoined them at the human ambassador's office. “You saw what I did in that alley back there.” the Quarian was saying, _Tali,_ Alenko had informed him. “Let me come with you!”

Shepard appeared to be considering. “I thought you were on your pilgrimage?”

“The pilgrimage proves we are willing to give of ourselves for the greater good. What does it say about me if I turn my back on this?”

“Saren is a danger to the entire galaxy. My pilgrimage can wait.”

Shepard was showing her teeth in a very simian way. It was unnerving. Alenko joined her. Garrus looked toward Tali. He couldn't see her mouth, her body language, though, was tense but open. She leaned toward Shepard, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

Finally Shepard nodded, “Ill take any help I can get.” she said.

Tali took a deep breath as if she'd been holding it.

Garrus was inordinately pleased to be joining up with Shepard. Her crew had three of the most Turian aliens he had ever met.

On the way to the Citadel tower he pulled out his Omni-tool and pressed send on his letter of resignation to the Executor.


	2. Formidable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrus watched the Commander walk away. It was difficult seeing her in person. She was so like a Turian the way she acted and spoke that his brain kept giving her Turian physicality when she wasn’t in his presence.
> 
> “I can’t decide whether you fear her, or are interested in her.” Tali observed, standing there.
> 
> Garrus’ head swiveled back to Tali. “What?”

Garrus watched the Commander leave Engineering. Her body language was cocky, possibly indulgent but she has that horrible grimace on her face. He considered waiting, but waved at her. She walked toward him past the requisition officer.

“So I take it Tali'Zorah is making herself useful?” he said when she reached him.

This time the grimace was feral. Spirits he wished humans would smile like normal people.

“If we're not careful, my Chief Engineer will write a Rock Opera about her.” Shepard said.

“Rock? Opera?” The words had meaning separately, but together?

“Old Earth custom.” Shepard said “it's a series of songs tied together into a story. It's like an opera or a musical but with a specific type of music that uses percussion, bass and …” Shepard looked him up and down seeming to realize he wasn’t following “You know what, not important. I just don't normally think of engineers and symphonic music....”

Behind Shepard he saw Tali'Zorah herself emerge from the other engineering door and head for the Armory where she showed some sort of weapon mod that she'd modified herself to the Gunnery Chief. The two of them turned toward the bench, Ashley asking questions and Tali'Zorah answering her. He wanted to see what they were discussing, but first...

“I wanted to thank you for bringing me on board, Commander” Garrus smiled “I knew working with a SpecTRe would be better than life at C-Sec”

“Have you worked with a Spectre before?” she asked. Her body language was open, interested.

“Well, no.” Garrus smiled nervously, when the Commander talked to you she was fully focused on it. It was unnerving. “But I know what they're like.”

“Spectres make their own rules.” Garrus ticked off on his first talon “You're free to handle things your own way.” He shrugged his knees. “At C-Sec, you're buried by rules. The dam bureaucrats are always on your back.”

Shepard tilted her hips, her mouth turning downwards. “For the most part, the rules are there for a reason.”

“Maybe. But sometimes it feels like the rules are only there to stop me from doing my work. If I'm trying to take down a suspect, it shouldn't matter how I do it. So long as I do it.”

“But C-Sec wants it done their way. Protocol and procedure come first. That's why I left.”

As Garrus spoke, Shepard's fur, er... eyebrows moved toward each other until there was a dent right over her nose. 

“So you just quit because you didn't like the way they do things?” She asked

“There’s more to it than that, It didn’t start bad, but as i rose in ranks, i got saddled with more and more red tape.”

Garrus watched Shepard as she stepped back, wondering if he was losing ground and sped his words up. “C-Sec’s handling of Saren was typical.” Garrus shrugged quickly “I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I hate leaving, but…”

Shepard’s posture changed, closing and she crossed her arms over her chest pla..chest. A protective gesture? Was she frightened?

“I hope you made the right choice. I’d hate for you to regret it later.”

“Well,” he said quickly “that’s sort of why I teamed up with you. "It is a chance for me to get off the Citadel; see how things are done outside of C-Sec.”

“Either way, I plan to make the most of this.” he said, shrugging again. And without C-Sec headquarters looking over my shoulder, Well maybe i can get the job done my way for a change.”

He startled when Shepard’s arms moved from her chest to her hips and she stepped into his space, forcing him to crane his neck to look down at her. She pushed one of her FAR TOO MANY digits into his own chest plate. 

“If ‘getting the job done’ means endangering innocent people” Shepard’s voice was raised “Then no. We get the job done right. Not fast.” she paused, lifting up on her odd toes “Got it?”

If moving into his space was uncomfortable, her words initiated a flight response. He took a step back and couldn’t really think of what to say. “I wasn’t trying to… - I understand Commander”

She nodded, did an about face and stomped toward the lift. Garrus stared after her. This human was formidable. He wasted a moment hoping for a convenient weapon bolt would put him out of his misery and then he looked around to see if anybody’d seen him. The requisition officer was arguing with somebody on a private com line. Wrex was chuckling while playing holos of thresher maws killing each other. Ashley was cursing as she tried to clean a weapon that had taken a bolt from a Geth gun. The Quarian wasn’t with her and he was probably safe. 

‘Till his eyes reached the door to Engineering. There he saw the Quarian turn and run through the door.

Busted. Garrus sighed.

\--------

“Good Morning!” Tali greeted him with the kind of joy reserved for Turian children at Satnal. As she plunked down her D-rations across from him at the table.

“Oh,” Garrus said as he scrambled to move his data pad out of the way. “Good morning, Tali’Zorah. Did you sleep well?”

“Mmm-hmm” she hummed her response

Garrus watched her duck her head, focusing too hard on inserting her suit’s injection port cleanly into the tube.

“Tali, are you all right?” he leaned in trying to look through the anti-biotic fog behind her mask. It was impossible to see her face at all. Quite the opposite of Shepard’s squishy, highly mobile face, but just as unreadable. Was she ill?

“Yes.” she said, still staring at her hands. “I adapted to the new location fairly quickly for me.” Then she began to roll up the tube while staring hard at the induction port.

“But?” Garrus supplied the missing word

“Tali looked back at him. “Well it is so quiet. And empty. I spend half the night waking up in a panic thinking the engines have gone offline.”

“The Flotilla is loud? ”

“Yes.” she said. “Ancient engines make far more noise, plus a ship this size in the Flotilla would have twice as many people on it. And people make noise.”

“The Flotilla spends its time in places with very low populations. So waking to find the ship silent and empty is a fairly common nightmare among my people.”

Garrus leaned back and thought. He knew the feeling, although in opposite. His first week at the fleet, he’d barely slept because of the noise. He’d been used to the silence of his parents’ home.

He scratched the floor as an idea hit him. She jumped, leaning slightly back and tilting her head.

“I may have an idea,” he explained leaning forward.

“What?” she too leaned forward

He inspected her mask, he reyes glowing in the fog. Her nose appearing slightly square. “I was thinking, maybe you could pipe the sound into your…” he stopped, pointing to his Aural membranes.

“Aural Stimulators?” she supplied. She crosed her hands on the table, her talo...digits vibrating slightly. “That might work, but who records teh sounds of engines?”

“record what?” Shepard leaned over and Garrous noticed others had joined the two of them at the table. As he resisted the urge to slide away from Shepard, he also realized he hadn’t eaten his own D-Rations, so interested in watching how Tali’s induction system worked.

“Engine sounds” Tali said, going on to explain Garrus’ idea.

“You don’t know a lot of humans do you?” Shepard said, bringing up her Omni-tool. Soon they were watching what appeared to be Skycar races. The holo changed to swoops, then what appeared to be ground vehicles similar to the mako but with fewer wheels then wheeled swoops. Then she ran through the holos again, stopping at each to explain.

“What is this?” Garrus asked

Shepard flipped through them again, explaining“NASSKY”, she said. “Swooper Cross”, “NASCAR”, “Motorcross.”

“Those last two sound close” Tali said her digit tapping on the table. Shepard transferred the two files to her, and made a copy for him as well.

“Together Garrus and Tali pieced together a clip by overlaying the portions of the clips that Tali said were best and creating a loopable sound.

“Thank you, Garrus” Tali said “I never would have thought of this.” She stopped in the act of getting up. “What gave you the idea.?”

Garrus smiled at her. “My parents didn’t have as many children as they had hoped when they bought their home. So our house was always very empty and the radiation shielding made it silent. I had trouble sleeping when I joined the fleet for my term of service. One of my friends suggested I employ noise cancellation. It didn’t take long before I didn’t need it, but I still use it sometimes when I can’t sleep and am too tired for calisthenics.”

He shrugged. “It was the same idea,” he finished “just… opposite in practice, piping in sound instead of canceling it out.”

“Thank you.” Tali said looking to both Shepard and Garrus

“Good luck” Shepard said, her face taking on that simian look that he had come to recognize as a smile.

Garrus watched the Commander walk away. It was difficult seeing her in person. She was so like a Turian the way she acted and spoke that his brain kept giving her Turian physicality when she wasn’t in his presence.

“I can’t decide whether you fear her, or are interested in her.” Tali observed, standing there.

Garrus’ head swiveled back to Tali. “What?”

“I saw your file.” Tali said “from C-Sec. You have more disciplinary actions on your file for insubordination than any Turian on the force. You don’t back down, frequently you don’t even back down when you are wrong. Last week, I saw you back down.”

Garrus looked back the way Shepard had gone his feelers moving outward.

That woman killed more than one Thresher Maw on Akuze using just her wits and a crate of ordnance. Of course I’m in awe of her. She’s … “ he went through a list of adjectives. scary, powerful, commanding, “...formidable”

The speaker on Tali’s suit made that trilling sound that Quarians made when laughing. “I’m going with both.” she said

She bounced a hand on the table and pointed at him. “Thank you, again, Garrus” and she walked away toward the lift to the garage.

“Let me know if it works. If not, I’m sure we can get something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scratching the floor - again, trying to give him non-human traits. It's a sign of excitement in Tuians i just decided.

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so i'm pretty sure Garrus shrugs in ME somewhere, with his shoulders, but It bugs me that all the aliens but the "big stupid jellyfish" are either bipedal or quadripedal and that they seem so human, rubbing their necks. I mean look at Turians, how do they get their hands behind their necks in the first place. And it fit the story.
> 
> And since i found something on one of the ME wikis that likened the Turian Colonies to the Roman empire i looked up the list of tribes and empires that DIDN'T fall to Rome and chose Persia (making it Perysa (like Macedyn comes from Macedonia). I was annoyed that while a short bit about a lost colony appears every time you pick up a Turian insignia nobody has collected this information onto one of the many ME wikis. The whole suicide versus falling is a tale from the end of the first Roman-Jewish war (around 66 CE) "The suicide at Massada" Look it up, it's both tragic and insanely interesting.
> 
> Personally, I find it a bit difficult to suspend disbelief about the crap that Garrus knows about humans. The Tango? Really?
> 
> And for a Turian to consider a non-Turian for a romance he or she would have to be pretty darn Turian, even if they didn't get EVERYTHING.


End file.
